We’ve likely all seen ambitious projects and overhauls that promised transformative results. Sometimes they hit their mark, but more often than not, they fall short or even lead to outright failure. Why do these grand efforts often stumble, while smaller, more focused changes seem to work better? The Pitfalls of Going Big We’ve all been there - the promise of a massive overhaul that will revolutionize your systems, catapult you ahead of the competition, and finally solve all your long-standing issues....

We often fall into the trap of assuming that our experience automatically grants us the sole authority on any given issue. “I’ve been doing this for years,” we might say, “I know what works.” While experience is vital, this mindset can seriously hinder how we collaborate and make decisions. The truth is, experience alone doesn’t provide the full picture. It has, undoubtedly, provided us with a wealth of valuable data points that contribute to our understanding....

In today’s fast-paced world of software development, speed and consistency are crucial for competitive advantage. Platform engineering has emerged as a powerful paradigm to help organizations achieve this. However, some misunderstandings persist. It’s often misconceived that platform engineering equates to centralized control and imposing rigid restrictions. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The Heart of Platform Engineering: Developer Enablement At its core, platform engineering is about empowering product development teams....

While Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) emerged from Google’s approach to managing large-scale systems, it’s crucial to remember that it’s not a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution. Google operates at a scale and complexity that most other companies don’t encounter. Therefore, successfully adopting SRE requires careful adaptation to the specific challenges and realities of your organization. Understanding the Importance of Context In the world of software engineering and operations, context is vital. Here’s why your organization’s specific context matters:...

When something goes wrong in tech - a website crashes, a system fails, a project deadline whooshes past - it’s natural to want to understand what happened and why. However tempting it may be to find someone to hold accountable, that instinct undermines one of the most powerful tools in a tech team’s arsenal: the postmortem. What is a Postmortem? A postmortem (literally, “after death”) in the tech world is a detailed review of an incident or failure....